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A different approach singing faces?


ScottyMo

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Thought I would share a different approach to singing faces

Instead of making my singing faces out of rope light, I decided to do something a little different. I wanted to go with fully lit up faces as opposed to outlines.

I built them using 12v RGB modules which allows me to make each singer any color.

My main singing pumpkin is 4 feet wide X 5.5 feet high. The back-up singers are 3.5 feet wide X 4 feet high.

Here is a small snippet of video that shows the main singer and one of the back-up singers.

https://vimeo.com/48996187

The video and audio are not very good quality. However, the faces look better in real life.

ScottyMo

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How did you do that? What spreads the color across the faces? Are you using coro?

Wow, i like that :) Would also be interested in how you did it

Inquiring minds want to know. If I knew how to do that, I would do some singing faces too.

Very nice job, but we need a how-to please!

Ron

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How did you do that? What spreads the color across the faces? Are you using coro?

Hey TJ. No, I’m not using coro. White coro does work, however, you can see small white lines throughout. Since the sidewalk is only about 20 feet from the front of my house, I didn’t want the lines to be visible. For houses set back further from the road, white coro would be fine.

Instead, I contacted a local plastic supplier and purchased “sign white” plexi. The same material used for backlit signs.

I’ll put together a summary of how I did it and include some pictures.

ScottyMo

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As promised, below is a description of how I created these faces…

The face frame is made with a plywood back and 1x6 pine sides. The main singer has 1x4 sides, but I switched to 1x6 for the backup singers. (1x6 works better). The front of the boxes is white plexi. Same stuff used in backlit commercial signs (they call it “sign white”)

Here is a pic from the front with the covers on...

post-10088-0-21867300-1347074704_thumb.j

I used a roll of 6” wide aluminum flashing from Home Depot to create\form the face sections. I simply fold\crease them into an "L" shape and screwed them to the plywood with zip screws.

post-10088-0-44925200-1347074701_thumb.j

I cut the top 2” off a 5gal pail and attached the aluminum to it to form the “o” shape in the center of the mouth…

post-10088-0-47194200-1347074702_thumb.j

I then attached RGB modules to the back plywood, and wired them to a 27 channel DMX board from Ray Wu (Kevin’s store as them now too), which is powered by a 16.5a power supply…

post-10088-0-32897500-1347074699_thumb.j

The main singer uses 7 channels…

1 for the face

1 for the stem

1 left eye

1 right eye

3 for the mouth positions

The backup singers share the same controller to keep costs down. So they use only 4 channels each.

1 for the face

3 for the mouth positions

I didn’t want to drill any holes in the plexi to mount it to the frame. So instead, I found some 8 foot lengths of black aluminum ¾” “L” channel. It holds the plexi in place very well and provides a nice looking edge. (not shown in the pictures)

Here are a couple more pics...

post-10088-0-66739900-1347074703_thumb.j

post-10088-0-52861400-1347074700_thumb.j

Feel free to fire over any questions,

ScottyMo

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Those are very impressive! What an awesome idea. I know I'm afraid to ask, but approximately how much would one of those cost to DIY.

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Nicely done.

For reference, what size are those, and do you know how many LED modules are in them?

The main singer is 4'x5.5'

The backup singers are 3.5'x4'

About 170 modules for the main singer and around 90 for the backup singers

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Those are very impressive! What an awesome idea. I know I'm afraid to ask, but approximately how much would one of those cost to DIY.

Ouch. I'm now wishing you didn't ask that question. I really hadn't added it all up until now.

For the main singer...

Lumber : 35

Plexi: 90

Controller: 50

Power Supply: 30

Leds: 110

Trim: 20

Aluminum: 30

So about $365 not including wire, screws, etc.

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Ouch. I'm now wishing you didn't ask that question. I really hadn't added it all up until now.

For the main singer...

Lumber : 35

Plexi: 90

Controller: 50

Power Supply: 30

Leds: 110

Trim: 20

Aluminum: 30

So about $365 not including wire, screws, etc.

But you did get a discount on the back-up singer, right?

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Darn you beat me to it. I just did some testing and design to do nearly the exact same thing. Nice.... Great minds think alike. :)

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But you did get a discount on the back-up singer, right?

:D Yes the back-up singers cost me less. Because they are smaller, but mainly because the 2 backup singers share the same controller and power supply to keep costs down. The only real down side is that there are not enough channels for the back-up singers to blink or wink. Only the main singer can do those functions

ScottyMo

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Thanks for posting this idea and actually doing it!!!! WELL DONE!

I was thinking of the same idea - but more from a model airplane perspective. A light frame can be made and they have MonoKote thin plastic you can iron on to the edges, and then use a heat gun to tighten up the surface - kinda like a drum. Instead of LEDs, I would just use a couple of little xmas light bulbs, like C9s, and maybe even add a couple of different ones per a cell for color -- maybe even test RGB.

The design would be a little lower in cost, but the main benefit would be a lighter display that I could hang up high on the wall of my home. I suppose the problem might then turn in to it being too light (like an airplane wing) and might flop around in the wind if not really well mounted!!

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Ouch. I'm now wishing you didn't ask that question. I really hadn't added it all up until now.

For the main singer...

Lumber : 35

Plexi: 90

Controller: 50

Power Supply: 30

Leds: 110

Trim: 20

Aluminum: 30

So about $365 not including wire, screws, etc.

:o Ouch! Sure does look awesome though!

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